Privacy is important, it’s why people lock the doors to their cars, or their houses at night, install home security systems on their homes, or even take out a lock box at a bank. So why should privacy of one’s data be treated any differently? as more and more of our personal data becomes stored online,, and we share more information online, data privacy is becoming more important than ever before.
Data Privacy Day began in the United States and Canada in January 2008 as an extension of the Data Protection Day celebration in Europe. Data Protection Day commemorates the Jan. 28, 1981, signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection.
Hundreds of millions of people are completely unaware of and uninformed about how their personal information and private data is being used, stored, or shared in our online society. Data Privacy Day aims to inspire communication and empower individuals and organizations to take action in order to better protect themselves and their personal data online. The US, Canada, and dozens of countries across Europe recognize January 28th as international Data Privacy Day. These countries have united in an effort to empower individuals and organizations to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust world wide.
Data privacy relates to how data, or personal information about each of us should be handled based on its relative importance. But what does relative importance mean? An example of this is like telling someone you just met your name, or giving them your phone number. However, you wouldn’t tell a stranger or most people for that matter your Social Security Number, or tell anyone the pin to your ATM card; information of that level of importance you want to keep protected right?
This goes with data privacy online as well!
In the digital age, information and data is everything. It’s how many major businesses make millions or billions each year. By obtaining and selling information or data about each and every one of us! We typically think of data privacy as critical personal information, otherwise known as Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or Personal Health Information (PHI). Information like our Social Security Number, health and medical records, financial data, including bank account, debit and credit card numbers.
However, the most basic of information still can be considered sensitive,like our full names, addresses and birthdates. This type of information can be used in social engineering or phishing against unwitting users.
One final recommendation to help you keep your online and personal data private is to regularly assess and update the privacy settings on your social media accounts. If you don’t, you may be sharing a lot more than just your name with complete strangers and even potential cyber-criminals — a clever enough cyber-criminal could use that information to steal your identity or a lot more.
Here at SME Inc, our goal is to make IT easier, this includes assisting you in protecting your privacy online. We provide both Security Awareness Training, Phishing simulations, and several other Compliance Solutions. To find out more about these services or any other IT/security related questions, please give us a call at 703-378-4110 or email info@smeinc.net